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NEW ORLEANS — Just days after the last of four Confederate monuments slated for removal came down in New Orleans, an apparent anarchist group that calls itself the Real Meow Meow Liberation Front – Professional Party Planning Committee has vandalized another monument that pays tribute to a Confederate poet and priest.
The monument at Banks Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway honors Father Abram J. Ryan, a poet and priest of the Confederacy.
The pictures above, taken on Wednesday, show the monument spray-painted with red paint and Anarchy symbols, with pieces of paper strewn across the neutral ground on which the monument sits. There are also chisels and hammers left at the base of the monument.
The notes say, in part, that the group “provided hammers and chisels for your pleasure, brought to you with just an eency bit of embezzled tax dollars.”
“So come one, come all! Take a few whacks! Carve your name … Mind the wet paint and have fun!” the notes say. “Let’s burn down the American Plantation together!”
The same message is posted on a website called It’s Going Down, which describes itself as a “digital community center from anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements.”
The website says the post was authored by an anonymous contributor.
It’s not the first time Confederate monuments have been vandalized in New Orleans since the City Council voted in December 2015 to have four statues taken down. The Liberty Place monument was removed in late April, followed by Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard and Robert E. Lee.
Lee was the last monument removed. It took 11 hours and was taken down late Friday afternoon.
